


Hands Meeting Hands

by inexplicifics



Series: Sugar and Spice Bingo [5]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Holding Hands, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29190696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics
Summary: It’s not anything Eskel expected Lambert to like, back when they were first getting together.
Relationships: Eskel/Lambert (The Witcher)
Series: Sugar and Spice Bingo [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2096091
Comments: 37
Kudos: 407
Collections: Sugar and Spice Witcher Bingo





	Hands Meeting Hands

It’s not anything Eskel expected Lambert to like, back when they were first getting together. Fierce, energetic, slightly kinky sex - yes, of course. Sparring as foreplay - definitely. Even Lambert’s deep love for massages - both giving and receiving - did not really surprise Eskel; Lambert has a well-hidden love for pleasing other people, as long as they’re the right people, and a rather less well-hidden love for being pampered.

But Eskel is genuinely startled to discover that Lambert likes holding hands.

Lambert doesn’t _say_ so, of course, because getting Lambert to actually voice his real desires anywhere but in bed is an exercise in utter frustration - he’ll grouse and complain and bitch about everything, just sort of on principle, and the way to know he’s genuinely _angry_ about something is that he shuts up and just _glowers_ , whereas the way to know he’s actually enjoying something is that his grousing is especially colorful and he has a little smirk playing around the corners of his mouth. Instead, Lambert just starts slipping his hand into Eskel’s any time they’re going in the same direction.

Eskel has long practice in not showing any reactions to Lambert’s more remarkable behaviors, so he doesn’t flinch and pull his hand away the first time it happens, which would doubtless have made Lambert furious enough to never try it again. He curls his hand around Lambert’s after a brief, frozen moment of surprise, and Lambert pauses just for a second in his rant about substandard spices at the market to make a satisfied little hum.

After that it becomes common, and Eskel stops needing to take that second to rein in his initial startle reaction. He’s walking beside Lambert, they’ll be holding hands, that’s just the way it is now.

Lambert’s hands are strong and callused - well, of course they are, they’re witchers after all - but the pattern of calluses is subtly different from Eskel’s own, Lambert favoring a slightly different grip on his swords to go with his partially-Cat-trained acrobatic fighting style. There are spatterings of burn scars from alchemical experiments gone wrong, little patches of particularly rough or smooth skin that Eskel finds himself rubbing his fingers against in little unconscious patterns. There’s one scar along the outside of Lambert’s left little finger which has a pleasant sort of curl to it, and a nick on the tip of his right middle finger that has an oddly appealing roughness.

The first time they’re walking together and Eskel reaches for _Lambert’s_ hand first, Lambert pauses in the middle of his rant about the most recent batch of White Gull and why it’s not up to its usual standards, and doesn’t start again, just staring down at their joined hands in something like awe. Eskel squeezes his hand a little and doesn’t mention the fact that he’s fallen silent.

Lambert doesn’t go silent when Eskel reaches for his hand after that, but he always gets a little smile, not so much on his mouth but in the crinkles around his eyes, and shifts a little closer, until their shoulders brush. That is reason enough for Eskel to keep doing it.

It’s not anything Eskel expected, when Lambert first grumbled his way through admitting that he’d prefer their relationship to be more than brothers-in-arms. It’s not something he would have guessed Lambert, prickly Lambert who never admits to having any softness in his soul, would enjoy. But there’s something about holding hands with his sharp-tongued lover that makes Eskel feel so warm and happy that he can’t even find words to express it.

He settles for squeezing Lambert’s hand every time their fingers intertwine, and Lambert always squeezes back.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sugar & Spice Witcher Bingo, and beta'd by the amazing RoS13!


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